Strange Meeting by Wilfred Owen Essay Example

Strange Meeting by Wilfred Owen Essay Example Strange Meeting by Wilfred Owen Paper Strange Meeting by Wilfred Owen Paper Essay Topic: Literature At the time he wrote this poem, Wilfred Owen had lost hope for the war generation: civilians could not understand, soldiers could not explain. All a war poet could do was warn children, they might find consolation later that a true voice had managed to speak. His poems might prove that there is something indestructible in this human spirit. That would only be consolation if future generations acted on his warning and loved their fellow men. Owen felt he failed as a poet. From your reading of Strange Meeting, what do you think? In the poem Strange Meeting, Wilfred Owen believes he has failed as a poet. I think that he would be trying to warn future generations and also tell the truth about the war to civilians. His aim was to make civilians realise what war was really like and for the war to end. Wilfred Owen has a negative attitude towards war in general, and this negativity shows constantly throughout his poem Strange Meeting. One of the main ideas of the poem is the pity of war and this shows Owens belief that war creates more problems that it solves. I mean the truth untold, the pity of war, the pity war distilled. Wilfred Owen is telling us here that the soldiers cannot explain what war was like and that the real truth was not being told, as it should be. The truth is the pity of war and Wilfred Owen is trying to tell this message in his poem, because as a poet he believes that it is his duty to tell everyone how terrible war is. Owen is hoping that war will make people show pity and think about what war actually achieves for mankind. Wilfred Owen shows us that war does not move the human race on, but takes it backwards. He believes that war is not suitable in todays society. Much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels I this quotation, Owen is explaining that war (the blood) is halting humanity (chariot-wheels) from progressing. He believes war is what people did a long time ago when they had a disagreement, and it has no place in modern society. When humanity is evolving and moving the human race. On one step, war is taking us back two steps. He would rather leader talk about their disagreements instead of fighting with each other at any opportunity they get. Wilfred Owen shows us that through knowledge we can learn to avoid war, and if everyone knows about the reality of war, it can be a thing of the past. Courage was mine and I had mystery, wisdom was mine and I had mastery; to miss the march of this retreating world. In the war, soldiers have the courage, and they follow their orders to their extent. But Wilfred Owen has the wisdom to step back from the war and he still has his life intact, but those who have had the courage to be fully involved with war will have lost their lives. Wilfred Owen has almost lost all hope of warning civilians and he thinks that he is fighting a losing battle. He has lost all hope of helping others because he does not think that they can understand. Here is no cause to mourn The deaths and the suffering that Wilfred Owen saw in the war have left him without hope, because it goes against everything he believes in. From the first three lines of the poem we learn a lot about Wilfred Owen. We learn that he seems to be in a dream or nightmare because he uses the phrase it seemed. He uses the metaphor: Down some profound dull tunnel The dull tunnel is portraying Owens state of mind, a trench he is travelling down, and is also a reference to him entering hell. Wilfred Owen is travelling into his hell: war. The tunnel is great in intensity (profound) and is travelling into something which titanic wars had groined. Owens idea of hell is something war had shaped: a trench cut out into the earth during war by a bomb. The soldiers will be forced to be satisfied with the destruction they have caused or they will walk away sad from the war because of the lives that they have killed. Now men will go content with what we spoiled. Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled. The soldiers may be happy with what happened, or be dissatisfied, as Wilfred Owen was, at the fact that there will be more wars, suffering and bloodshed in the future. Owen wants to do something about it now, and stop war altogether because they are killing innocent people and destroying the earth that they live on. Wilfred Owen was in his own vision of hell. His vision of hell was one of pain and suffering and hopelessness. He was living in hell. By his dead smile I knew I stood in Hell. With a thousand pains that visions face was grained. Here, Wilfred Owen is warning people of the pity of war and that war is the same as hell. Hell was a place where pain was multiplied a thousand times on one face. Wilfred Owen is willing to die, but not at war, because he does not believe that a life deserves to be lost at war. He thinks that war is not worth going through, because the bad points outweigh the good points. I have poured my spirit without stint but not through the cess of war. Enemies are made at war, even though there is no logical reason that they should be enemies. I am the enemy you killed, my friend Wilfred Owen is contradictive because he calls him an enemy and friend. He loves his enemy as he loves himself. These people are enemies because they are on different sides, but they have no reason for fighting. If they were not at war with each other, they would be friends. Wilfred Owens goal as a poet was to tell people about the war and warn them. Some of the real truths about the war were almost too terrible for civilians to understand. I would go up and wash them from sweet wells, even the truths that lie too deep for taint. There are truths that are hidden and are so deeply covered that they escape decay or change. Wilfred Owen wants to uncover these truths that people are trying to hide, and tell everybody so that he can help bring an end to war and suffering. He is trying to help civilians understand the evil of war, because he believes that those who embrace war will go to hell. In hell there is suffering and you can have no feelings or emotions. I went hunting after the wildest beauty in the world, which lies not calm in eyes, or braided hair, but mocks the steady running of the hour, and if it grieves, grieves richlier than here. This is not conventional beauty, this is a beauty that transcends time and is not beauty that human beings can possess. In conclusion, I do not think that Wilfred Owen has failed as a poet because I think that he has been successful in warning people about the pity of war. He has warned civilians about the evil that is in war. Wilfred Owen, in his poem Strange Meeting has tried to teach people, but he may not have been successful in his own battle, to stop war and suffering altogether. In his own eyes, Wilfred Owen may have not been a successful poet because there are still wars going on nowadays and therefore has failed. However, I believe that he told the real truths about war like a war poet was meant to, and has tried to teach people to love each other instead of fight.